


Get Me

by Kaslyna



Category: Snowpiercer (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Rambling, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26705848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaslyna/pseuds/Kaslyna
Summary: And it was all of these things that made them becoming lovers seem natural. It was yet another way he made her feel alive. Like a whole person again. She would admit it only once, when she showed up after a long, bad day with a bottle of something they polished off quickly, that made her bold enough to say it. They never spoke of it again after.Or: Melanie thinks about all the little ways Bennett has saved her and reminded her of her humanity over the years.
Relationships: Melanie Cavill/Bennett Knox
Kudos: 11





	Get Me

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here:
> 
> https://amandarosewater.tumblr.com/post/630468790637985792/melaniebennett-get-me
> 
> Prompt is from this list:
> 
> https://amandarosewater.tumblr.com/post/628647928805965824/drabbles-send-me-characters-and-a-prompt

In hindsight, Melanie probably should have realized that the sacrifices she’d have to make to keep Snowpiercer running would include her humanity. That it would take all of her time, her energy, her willpower-even her sanity-was obvious; but she had not known that it would take everything she had to give and then some, until she barely felt like more than an extension of the train. Just another thing to fuel their eternal engine. Not real. Not a person, anymore.

Somewhere along the way-without her even realizing it-Bennett had become her anchor. Her tie to humanity. She was close to Javi and Jinju too; but there was something with them that made her hold back, just a little. Perhaps she was still wary of the resentment simmering below Javi’s surface, the way she could feel it like a tangible thing sometimes. Or that Jinju, as well meaning as she was, often pushed her to talk about things she wasn’t ready to talk about, unwittingly causing her to retreat further within herself. 

Bennett never pushed her. He would question her as needed, but never once did she doubt that at the end of the day, he would be by her side, loyal and supportive of her decisions. 

But it was more than that, too. It was the way that he had been the one to force her to go back to bed the first time she became sick on Snowpiercer almost two revolutions in, ignoring her insistence that she was fine-even when that turned to cursing him out in her feverish state for daring to care about her, for making her stop, even for just one moment. 

~

_“Ben, I’m_ **_fine_** _, there’s no reason for you to hover,” she snapped. Her words might have had more bite to them if she hadn’t immediately stumbled in her attempt to get out of the grip he’d had on her since he’d seen her walk into the engine, skin flushed and clammy, wobbling in her too high heels._

_“You’re not,” his voice was firm, unfazed by her protests._

_“God damn it,” she growled, “What do you even care? The train needs me. We_ **_both_ ** _know that, so just let me go.”_

_“I’ll call Ruth if you don’t,” he threatened._

_Her face flushed with anger now too, and she got back into his space, “Fuck you, I’m an adult. I don’t need this shit.”_

_“Mel,” his tone was becoming frustrated with her behavior, close to snapping himself, “It’s_ **_protocol_** _. One that you actually helped come up with. We can’t afford infecting the whole train.”_

_She deflated at that. He was met with no more resistance when he insisted, gently, that she get more comfortable while he found their small supply of ibuprofen to bring her fever down._

_When he returned, she was on the phone with Ruth, informing her that she was too sick to come in-and likely would be for a week._

~

It was the way, on the first anniversary of when they started their journey and he found her drunk in her room, staring up at the ceiling, that he said nothing and simply joined her. He didn’t make her talk about it. He knew about Allie-enough about her, and how Melanie felt, even if she’d never said it-and wouldn’t push her to say more if she didn’t want to. So she said a little, and he listened while she did. When she woke up the next day with a bad hangover, she was in her bed, alone. She could remember enough to know instinctively that he had been the one to move her, and it made something wound tight inside of her begin to loosen, just a bit. In hindsight, that was the turning point: the point at which she realized that he grounded her. 

~

_“Hurt too much,” she slurred, still looking at the ceiling as his head turned to look at her, “Don’t want to think.”_

_He reached his hand out to take the one of hers that was closest to him. He squeezed it instead of saying anything, and Melanie exhaled shakily in response._

_“Every time I close my eyes I see her,” she murmured a little while later. As if on cue, Bennett watched her eyes shut, and moments later the tears came, too._

_“Mel,” his voice was soft. He just wanted to remind her that she wasn’t alone right now._

_She finally faced him, “I failed her, Ben.”_

_Once again he didn’t respond, choosing instead to pull her into him. He realized, belatedly, that they’d never been so close before when she tensed at the contact. But before he could find a way to apologize, her arm was wrapping around him. Clinging to him tighter than either of them expected-though neither of them mentioned it._

_“Who’d you lose?” she whispered._

_So he told her, and now she was the one who listened. And by the time he had finished she was asleep. He let her be for a while, but when Bennett realized that Melanie was probably going to actually_ **_stay_ ** _asleep-for once-he extricated himself._

_He frowned at how light she was as he got her into her bunk, making a mental note to make sure she ate more. She wouldn’t take kindly to being told what to do-he’d have to make sure there was enough food on hand that he could just give it to her._

_He made his way back to the helm, and spent the night alternating between thinking about Melanie’s losses-and his own._

~

Or how after the year three rebellion in the tail, when she returned to the engine shaken from what she’d witnessed when she’d made it to the tail-before the fighting was fully done-and he had seen her and immediately dragged her back to her room. How she hadn’t even realized she’d been injured when a tailie had gotten one good hit in before a jackboot killed him, until Bennett pointed it out, offering her an ultimatum that it was him or him dragging her to the infirmary to get a look at her ribs. He’d ignored the innuendo she’d made about him just wanting an excuse to see her shirtless, taking her quips in stride as he tended to her injury. 

~

_“I don’t fully blame them, you know,” she’d said, wincing a little as the pain throbbed, “I wish it could be different. But it can’t be, Ben. And I wish they could understand that.”_

_He was silent for a long time, focusing on wrapping her ribs with a bandage he’d found in their first aid kit, insisting it only be a temporary fix until she could see a doctor the next day. He winced a little himself at the hisses of pain she let out, hating to be the cause of them. Finally he looked up at her and said, “I know.”_

_After that, they didn’t speak._

~

He understood her better than anyone else on the train, and never judged her-never undermined her authority-even when they disagreed. Bennett kept the human part of Melanie alive, reminded her that she was more than the too many personas she’d had to adopt to make sure they all survived. 

And it was all of these things that made them becoming lovers seem natural. It was yet another way he made her feel alive. Like a whole person again. She would admit it only once, when she showed up after a long, bad day with a bottle of something they polished off quickly, that made her bold enough to say it. They never spoke of it again after. 

They didn’t need to. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it. :) I have one more prompt for them left-but if you want to send some in you're welcome to!


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